I’m sure every EFL teacher has their favourite song to use when working on conditionals. Mine is by an indie rock band from the north east of England called ‘Young Rebel Set’ and the song is called ‘If I was’. I first heard this on the BBC Radio 2 Saturday Sessions and, as is the curse of the EFL teacher, immediately thought about how to use it in a lesson.

The song is easy for students to follow, tells a simple story and is full of examples of unreal conditional sentences. It also has a couple of examples of ‘I wish’ with the past perfect to express regret. It uses the more colloquial, but very common, ‘if I was’, rather than ‘if I were’ and to top it off, has some great northern vowels in it.

What’s your favourite song for working on if clauses?